Eavesdropping on Antarctic blue whales

The Australian Antarctic Division has and through some new recordings from the Southern Ocean, you can hear it too.

Dr Brian Miller, scientist with the AAD, says the trip to record the Antarctic blue whales was lots of fun as well as being a lot of tough work.

"This is the first voyage of its kind," he told Louise Saunders on Drive.

"The purpose of the voyage was to be the first of a series of voyages developing new and effective methods for locating Antarctic blue whales to simply count how many there are and determine whether or not this endangered species is recovering."

There are only a few thousand Antarctic blue whales living in the massive Southern Ocean, which makes them rather hard to find.

"Finding Antarctic blue whales is kind of like finding a needle in a haystack," says Dr Miller.

Because of the difficulties with looking for a small number of whales in a very vast ocean, the AAD decided to not just 'look' for them, but the listen for them too.

The audio devices used where developed originally by the navy for detecting ships and submarines. The device is about the size of a small household fire extinguisher and transmits radio waves in real time, allowing the ship to listen in and move towards any area where blue whale songs where heard.